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Create your own 'Star Wars' title crawl

The official Star Wars Crawl Creator turns your text into an iconic space-faring movie opening. (Mild spoilers ahead.)

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida

Ready for some fun? The Star Wars Crawl Creator, a Web app recently added to Starwars.com, lets you channel your inner Abrams (or Lucas, if you're old-school) to create one of those iconic text blocks.

By default, and by way of example, the Crawl Creator shows the introduction from "Episode IV: A New Hope." When you're ready to insert your own text, scroll to the top of the box and click Editor.

Now you can enter the title, episode number (or subtitle if you prefer) and main text. This works like any basic text editor, and what's cool is that whatever you input is instantly reflected in the preview pane. You can even mouse over that pane and click the Play button to see if it's looking the way you want.

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Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

When you're done, click Done, then enjoy your crawl. Of course, the best part is sharing it, which you can do by clicking the Share button (up top, next to Editor). Your options include Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, e-mail and embed.

Unfortunately, there's no way to download or otherwise save your crawl, which is a bummer for budding filmmakers. However, if you expand the animation to full-screen and use a screen-recording tool like Screencast-O-Matic, you might be able to work around that little limitation.

Anyway, here's my creation. It contains mild spoilers. Don't hate me -- I'm entitled to my opinion!